I think he leaves within 2 years anyway, I think he's an opportunist type guy, plus being ND coach has to be stressful, he has made them more competitive and who knows how long that might last there, he'll wanna take advantage while the iron is hot.

I imagine they would first float to the usual suspects. Jon Gruden, Chris Peterson, Gary Patterson, James Franklin, Charlie Strong, David Shaw. Then assuming they couldn't get any of those guys, they would probably hire either Diaco or someone like Art Briles.

I think they could go with Chuck Martin, their offensive coordinator/assistant coach. He came from a simlar background and Kelly loves him. Martin might be Notre Dame's Luke Fickell and hold the job for a year untill a "big name" can be hired

Kelly's track record says he's an awesome coach (purple-face of not) and Notre Dame is recruiting just as well or even better than us right now. He made GVSU awesome, he made CMU sweet, he made Cincinnati sweet, and he could easily turn ND into a perennial top 5 team.

No way Meyer ever leaves OSU for anything other than the NFL. Prestiege and recruiting platform are pretty similiar, he has more history with OSU than anywhere other than Cinci, and there is absolutely no way OSU won't match/beat on coaches salary + assistants salary. Alas, I think we are stuck with him until he retires.

but he's won everywhere he's been. To say he's had one good year at ND is true, but ignores his career. Plenty of NFL HC's have been hired on lesser HC resumes. Doug Marrone just took the Bills job this week.

I think he pretty much built GVSU from the ground up and I believe CMU and CIncy were pretty average before he got there and let them both to some of their best season ever. It's not like he was a Chizik who had Malzahn and Cam Newton (he had LeFevour but he's not quite the specimen Newton was)

Gvsu is a tough job.. He had to recruit against the likes of..... Hell if I know and I grew up 15 minutes from there. Doesn't change the fact that while in the big leagues all his winning teams were made of rosters full of the other coaches recruits.

You do realize that Mike DeBoard was the HC at CMU before Kelly correct? To say the cupboard was bare is an understatement, it had yet to be built yet.

Also, Weis had how many top 10 classes and perennially underachieved, Kelly has finally started to get the most out of the leftover upperclassman from those classes and with a hefty sprinkling of his own recruits got his team to the MNC. I may not like the guy but to say he wins with others recruits is untrue.

It doesn't matter what you do with 25 five star recruits. If you can't coach, you can't coach. I think its an absolute idiotic statement to make "Well he used the previous coaches kids", at the time those kids were recruited he was somewhere else. So if he had actually been at that school, whos to say he wouldn't have recruited those kids anyways?

So again, in this case, Weis recruited offense, strictly. There was nothing wrong with the offense. Under Weis I think ND had 35ppg on offense. The problem was a vacant defense. Kelly came in, recruited the hell out of defense and here we are.

Now if Kelly can do what he knows best and light up the offense, we'll be good.

B) How does winning, regardless of who recruited the players, impugn a guy's coaching capabilities? Is the jury still out on Brady Hoke because he hasn't stayed in one place long enough to play with a roster of 100% his guys? Perhaps. What about Jim Harbaugh? With 3 years at SDSU and 4 at Stanford, coaching with others players, was it dumb of the 49ers to hire him?

Kelly's not Larry Coker. He's won at all 4 stops. And in his case, unlike a Coker, he's elevated the programs he took over (CMU, Cinci, and now ND). I think we have good evidence it's not a coincedence or just luck of the roster, given his track record.

Also, we don't assess NFL coaches like that. "To be fair, Jim Harbaugh is winning in SF with some players left over from old staff... To be fair, we can't really say Chuck Pagano and Bruce Arians can coach even though the Colts made the playoffs, because a lot of the roster was left over from that Jim Caldwell 0-16 team."

Kelly''s an ass. People don't like him. I get it. I'm not a fan either. But it's not hard for me to imagine why an NFL GM or owner might think, "Hmmn, we should bring this guy in and at least talk to him."

Agreed, and the whole "with someone else's players" argument is really only relevant to the question of whether a guy can recruit or not. Seeing as how ND has the #1 class to ESPN and Rivals right now, I think its safe to say that Kelly is doing okay in that department.

That was my point. The only thing that argument is relevant for is recruiting, which doesn't matter in the NFL. I added the last sentence to point out that he is pretty good at recruiting anyway, so it doesn't make sense to criticize him on those grounds as a coach on either level.

I dunno. He's proly just watching the Chip Kelly v Browns & Eagles and how the end result was simply a nice, fat raise in Oregon. My guess is he'll use the leverage from their "mutual interest" to double his pay in South Bend.

Just an FYI a contract extension with hefty raise was already in the works, there was no need to pull this shit. Plus he is now out of the country and we have EEs coming in a few days. What bad timing for all of this.

This is indicative of him leaving for the NFL. Once a college coach interviews with an NFL team, it presents easy negative recruiting for other coaches. It makes it appear as though he is ready to jump ship at any moment, which makes it easy to recruit against him. To me, this makes it seem like his departure is coming.

Honestly if I were a coach I'd be of the Hoke philosophy, with college as my mountaintop. In college you get to be the boss and as long as your level of success fluctuates between 8-4 and 12-0 at a major program you have a lot of job security. In the NFL unless you're Bill Belichik the 50 egos around you run the show and with each step you make towards a Super Bowl you're just expected to do more, so in a weird way you actually have less security with more success. College is where it's at. Plus it's just more fun for everyone.

This second job he's been connected to this year and unlike the Bears the Eagles appear willing to spend. That and Kelly's answer the other day about the NFL makes this a possibility. If nothing else it will put a dent in their recruiting.

which means he had at least been talking to the Eagles or his agent was talking to the Eagles and relaying messages to Kelly. The Eagles didn't just call on Tuesday and say,'You want to stop by for an interview today?"

Does it not seem like a strange time to leave the country? It's obviously been a long season, but why wouldn't he wait until National Signing Day when he could go on a longer vacation without having to worry about recruiting.

Has Lou Holtz been on TV since ND lost? He went off on a co-analyze before the game for not thinking ND would win... Looks even more old, stupid, and ignorant now than he did before if that's even possible

If ND had won the title, I could see this making some sense. But I don't see how an NFL team could want him. He's fresh off a vicious ass-kicking, he had two pretty meh years before that, and while he did field a 12-0 team this year, a lot of that was luck.

I don't see how any player on an NFL team would take him seriously. The only reason I can logically see Kelly doing this is to get more leverage and a bigger pay cut. Plus, he's the head coach of Notre Dame. I bash ND as much as the next guy, but that's not a job you just walk away from after only 3 years. In my opinion, I think the Notre Dame job is more prestigious than almost any job in the NFL, barring maybe the Packers, the Pats and the Cowboys.

Hoke interviewed with ANY other program, I would be pretty bummed. That's coming from a fan point of view. How do you think ND players must feel? On the other hand, I remember a certain whale's comment" TO HELL WITH NOTRE DAME"!!!

Kelly is having a SECOND interview with the Eagles when he gets back in the country this weekend. Second interviews for coaches is pretty serious, and Philly could be negotiating contract terms.

Also, apparently the Bears have intrest in wanting to hire Kelly. He's 51, and he has made it clear that he'd listen to the NFL (like almost all college coaches would). Philly has good pieces for a Kelly offense with DJax, Maclin, Foles, Brown, etc. Plus the Eagles FO has never been shy with opening up the wallet.

I don't like Brian Kelly, but it would be quite an accomplishment for him to move on to the NFL. If you look at his career, that would be quite a fast ascension from small-time coach at GVSU to CMU to Cincinnati to Notre Dame to the NFL in about a decade.

The unreasonable expectations of ND fans, the stress of recruiting nationally every year, the desire to "prove himself" at the professional level and the lure of NFL dollars PLUS the fact that, if he did and didn't like it, he could just Saban his way back to the FBS.

and I loathe ND more than anyone on these boards with exception to others who live around this area as well. To say Brian Kelly didn't maximize their talent is underwhelming. Fact is he's been successfulevery where he has been.. GVSU, CMU, Cinci, and now ND. You can't do much better than taking an unranked team to the #1 in polls even if they did get blown out by bama. He's better for us gone than there. Winning is the recruiting elixir cure-all.

Beyond all this, Kelly often butts heads with the alums I know. He wanted field turf to compliment his spread style, jumbo-tron, and a new stadium in general for ND but the alums are against it because of the history of ND and they don't want to ruin the nostalgia. I wouldn't be surprised if Kelly left if the Eagles would give him more control than Notre Dame does. He has his hands tied with things at the mercy of alums on many things.

Kelly is somewhat of a narcissist in the midst of a stodgy alumni heavy guard who would give him limited control. The second interview with Philly prospect is not just a lever for more money; he was going to get that anyway.